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Saturday, April 28, 2018

The New York Times has a heartrending story on poor Venezuelan migrants going to northern Brazil, which is feeling overwhelmed. The governor of the state of Roraima sued the federal government to close the border and provide needed funds for the services it provides the migrants. The pictures are particularly devastating.

This made me think of Brazilian politics and Lula, which I wrote about two days ago. If Jair Bolsonaro wins, you know the response will be harsh nationalism, sealing the border with force. But of the left wins, then what? Lula has been cautiously critical of Nicolás Maduro but would he--or anyone on the left--become more assertive given the impact on Brazil? It's much easier for Evo Morales to remain fully supportive of Maduro when Bolivia does not border Venezuela and therefore feels no impact from the humanitarian crisis.

There does remain a stubborn insistence that this is fake news, cooked up by the international imperialist terrorist right. In this scenario I suppose I am part of "global propaganda." As firsthand accounts and reports from international organizations increase, this gets harder to maintain. At what point does the Brazilian left become more vocal?

1 comments:

Man, that wasn't exactly the most fair of swipes on the venenzuelanal article. Most of of it is cited, and all of that. It doesn't mean that one has to agree with what it says, but it's not entirely disconnected-from-reality propanda, ya know?

As for what I believe, I think the Venezuelan regime is firmly okay with people leaving en masse, not least because of how it puts pressures on neighboring regimes that aren't all that stable in the first place.